Things to Do in New Hampshire
by raedbard
Summary: Ensemble: Things To Do in New Hampshire While You're Waiting for the Thaw: Josh Lyman is not gay. Except whilst waiting for a plane back to DC in the middle of an oldfashioned New Hampshire snowstorm.


**Title:** Things To Do in New Hampshire While You're Waiting for the Thaw  
**Author:** Raedbard  
**Fandom**: _The West Wing_  
**Pairing:** None really, I guess technically Josh/Toby, Josh/Sam and Josh/CJ  
**Rating:** PG-13  
**Word Count:** c. 2400  
**Disclaimer:** I don't pretend to be Aaron Sorkin or John Wells. I just like to borrow their characters and make them do morally reprehensible things to each other.  
**Timeline/Spoilers** 1st season, no spoilers.  
**Summary:** Josh Lyman is not gay. Except whilst waiting for a plane back to DC in the middle of an old-fashioned New Hampshire snowstorm.

**Things to Do in New Hampshire While You're Waiting for the Thaw**

"Is this fucking plane going to leave the ground, ever?"

"Toby, you really shouldn't yell. At least, you shouldn't yell those words, right here."

"CJ, I am standing here. There is snow all over the ground. I went outside for, you know, a minute and there is now snow in my hair, covering my shoes - and, more importantly, coating the damn plane! Nothing is moving! And nobody seems concerned that the plane is covered in snow!"

"What did you expect? A team of Oompa Loompas in all-weather gear, carrying shovels?"

"Well, I thought - perhaps naively - that, you know, maybe someone would care that Airforce One and the President of the United States are grounded in the snow in the middle of Hicksville, New Hampshire!"

"Toby, the plane is grounded. These things happen. We'll go and get a few drinks with Sam and Josh and you can get your head out of your ass."

"CJ - "

She looks at him, an eyebrow raised, "Listen, the pilot told me to go and get some cocoa a half an hour ago. You're the only one still standing here." She takes his hand. "C'mon, let's get wasted."

They walk together to the bar, in the snow. It's not so far. CJ presses into Toby's side, one arm through his. She brushes the snow, quick-melting, off his shoulder with her other, gloved hand. He turns to her as they walk and she thinks she can see a smile.

The bar is as all the bars they ever go to seem to be: dark, smoky and full of not very cleverly concealed Secret Service Personnel. She supposes they have to drink somewhere.

They find Sam and Josh easily. Sam's shirt is almost glowing in the dim light, white. He is laughing, but Josh looks worried and keeps running his hand through his hair.

"Well, I'd never kissed a boy before," Josh is saying as she comes up behind him. He is clutching a beer bottle and has peeled a tiny corner of the label away from the neck with one fingernail, and now his thumb is rubbing over the tear, but he is not aware of it.

"Though you have now," Sam says, watching him.

"Nooo, little man. Definitely not today. Well, not really. I sorta ducked and covered."

"And now you'll never see him again. A sad motif of failed boyhood love gone wrong."

"Sam!"

"What the hell are you talking about?" Toby says, sitting between CJ and Sam and balancing his glass on his knee as he reaches inside his jacket for a cigar.

"Josh has a new friend."

"I do not!"

"Turns out he really draws the guys."

"The guys?" CJ says, stirring the ice cubes in her glass with one finger.

"The guys."

"Two guys, Sam. One of which is right over there, so can we please not be shouting quite so loudly?"

"Who was the other one?" CJ asks.

"Bobby ... somebody, I was too caught up in the imagery to listen."

"Danny," Josh says, quiet.

"Yeah, they're trouble," CJ says, grinning.

"Is this really a conversation for adults?" Toby says, blowing a long stream of smoke from his mouth.

"Oh, shut up, Toby. This is interesting."

"No, it is in fact the exact opposite of interesting."

"It's a little interesting," Josh says, his thumb still rubbing over the label of his bottle.

"So what's the scoop with Danny? 'Scoop' with Danny? See what I did there?"

"Just ... please don't, CJ," Toby says, puffing a smoke ring.

"Fifth grade," Sam says. "Danny loves Josh but Josh doesn't love Danny. There's probably a desk somewhere in Connecticut with 'Danny 4 Josh' carved into it. Sweet."

"Not really, no." Toby is still blowing his smoke rings. They rise and grow in the air, forming a ever-increasing circle around them before they dissipate.

"It was weird, you know? And not like kissing a girl," Josh says.

"It's exactly like kissing a girl, Joshua," CJ says, her voice low and amused.

Toby and Sam turn to her in the same moment: "How do you know?"

"Oh please. UC Berkeley guys. Mine was a catholic education." She grins at them and slings her legs over the chair. Her feet are bare, shining white in the dark; fine bones and tendons picked out in the shadows. She arranges them, ankles crossed on Toby's chair, beside his arm. She does not twitch, and neither does he.

Toby squints slightly and rubs the heel of his hand against his forehead. "I didn't need that particular avalanche of visual imagery, CJ."

She turns to him, "You, my friend, need that imagery more urgently than any other man in this room. I do these things for your benefit."

"But I thought we had rules about those things," he says, face impassive.

"Well, just for the public face, Toby."

"But we will get back to my problem, won't we?" Josh says, passing his fingers through and through his hair.

"Oh yeah - feel absolutely free to let her insult me and then just move on to the next damn problem!"

"It was the original problem, Toby. Mine is the dilemma!"

"Get me more whiskey. And then I won't care."

"And that will be so pleasant for the rest of us," Sam says, a small smile across his mouth. He grins to meet Toby's stare. "What?"

"Anyway," CJ breaks in. "Joshua - "

"CJ, please stop calling me that."

"Oh no, I like it. It has a certain gravitas, a je ne sais quoi which, I think you'll agree - "

"CJ," Toby says, "For the love of whatever thing there may be that you hold holy - "

"Toby, you're worse than her!"

"Gratuitous French is a sin, Josh. A recognised sin. Which you would know if you ever went to Temple."

"Anyway," CJ begins again, "Josh, you're overreacting. You have no problem, just a new and very special fan. Sam, you're an instigator. Toby, you're a jackass."

"She just swops those round to match the occasion," Toby says. CJ hits his arm with her foot.

"I like being the instigator," Sam says, as much to himself as the other three.

"But I'm saying," Josh continues, "This guy came on to me and ... well, it was disturbing. I mean, I'm not ... you know, gay or anything."

"He was probably just drunk, Josh." Sam says.

"Yeah? You ever come on to a guy when you were drunk?"

Sam looks uncomfortable for a second. "I refuse to answer that on the grounds that I might incr - "

"Woah, there! You've come on to a guy?"

"I've slept with a prostitute - well a call girl, actually - that's a fun story too."

"But one we've already heard and mocked you for," CJ says.

"Using it as a diversionary tactic is probably not going to work then?"

"I wouldn't think so, no," Toby says.

"You came on to a guy, and you weren't wasted?" Josh says.

"Just the one time."

"Wow," Josh says, shaking his head. His lips are parted and his thumbnail is scratching again at the label on the beer bottle. "Toby, have you ever done that?"

Toby rubs two fingers across his chin and clears his throat before looking up at Josh, "Not when I was drunk, no."

"Good, 'cause I was beginning to think ... wait - "

"There it goes," Toby says, his voice low and quiet.

"So I'm actually the only person here who hasn't had some kind of ... homosexual ... jeez."

"And now you're thinking: Damn, perhaps Yale really wasn't the best school for me," CJ says, smiling. She taps her finger against her lips as she finishes.

"I can't believe I've been working with a bunch of ... deviants!"

"Josh!" CJ says. "Say it a little louder for the reporters, yeah?"

"Oh no, CJ, I didn't ... I mean - all about the pro-gay here, but ... Woah, is all I'm saying."

"And you are being very eloquent about it," Sam says, smiling.

"Sheltered little life, Joshua," CJ says, running her finger around the rim of her glass and smiling at Josh.

Josh looks at Toby, "Voice of reason?" he says, looking worried.

"What makes you say that, Josh?"

"Oh, c'mon, Toby. I mean you're not ... you know, what with Andy and ... the other women I'm sure must have come into your life ... sometime?"

Toby says nothing. He stares down at his feet, up on the table, and takes a long draw on his cigar. Eventually, "I honestly can't tell whether you're insulting me or fumbling around for a compliment there."

"You're telling me this doesn't freak you out at all?"

"Nope."

"Okay. You're all just ... very wrong people."

"Joshua Lyman, everybody!" CJ say, gesturing towards him, "Ambassador to oppressed minorities everywhere."

"CJ, no. No," Josh says, quiet; chastened. "It's just weird that it's all of you, and none of you told me. I mean, we're, you know - we're all buddies."

"Actually, I think you've just given us a fine demonstration of why you've never heard those stories, Josh," Toby says, smiling.

"Aw, Toby. Don't. I'm just surprised, is all."

"Well, Joshua," CJ begins.

"You're really never gonna let go of that, huh?"

"Well, not now, no. Anyway, Josh, to go back, as you were so keen to do earlier, to the original issue which was the young man who has sought your affection - "

Josh holds up a finger to stop her, "CJ, what's ... what's with the rhetorical style?"

"I like to make my points in the right way,"

"Well, that's fine, but could you be less ... British with it?"

She raises an eyebrow, and continues, "Anyway. You were wondering why this guy chose you as the object of his, sadly, unrequited love, and we were wondering why you were so freaked about it. You told Sam, I believe, that you had never kissed another man before, correct?"

"Isn't that what we've been arguing about for the last twenty minutes?"

"Right. Okay, so, I propose a little experiment which will, hopefully, give you a little perspective and, more importantly, provide us with an opportunity to mock you."

"Oh yeah, I can hardly wait."

"Sam, I'm gonna need you for this too."

"Sure," Sam say, "Though I'd kinda like to know what I'm agreeing to?"

"I think I get it," Toby says.

"I thought you might, Toby."

"Someone wanna explain it to me?" Sam asks.

"Oh, and I'll just sit here, by the way," Josh says, still picking at the label of the beer bottle.

"Sam and myself are going to kiss Joshua here," CJ says, "And thereby give him some data to enable him to determine, at his leisure - perhaps during those long, lonely nights - "

"Hey!"

"To determine," she continues, "Whether kissing a man is noticeably different from kissing a woman."

"And provide us with an opportunity to mock Josh," Toby says.

"Yes, that too."

Sam stays silent for a moment, frowning. "Toby doesn't have to ... "

"The beard probably throws it off a little, Sam," CJ says.

"But I have, you know, stubble."

"You do, huh?" Toby says, smiling.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"That it takes around, uh, a week for you to grow anything that resembles stubble?"

"It's less than a week."

"Maybe a little less."

"But, Sam, you're in?" CJ asks.

"Sure, why not?"

"Excellent."

They go up to Josh's room, taking refills of beer with them. CJ wants to take her Grasshopper too, but Toby refuses to let her leave the bar with the glass in her hand. Sam and Toby lead the way, having relieved Josh of his key in the elevator. CJ walks behind with Josh and slips her hand into his. She smiles at him, and at the nervous flush which has come to his cheeks. Once inside they sit Josh down on the bed and try to avoid the inevitable quips about orgies. They make Josh close his eyes, and they come to him one by one.

He can tell the difference, of course he can.

Sam comes first and Josh knows it's him straight away; knows him from the little sigh he makes as he sits down on the bed and from the light hand that Sam places on his knee. His mouth is light too, and quick and sweet. But, after a moment, Sam tastes of nothing, not even of the beer Josh watched him drink half an hour before. Sam is ephemeral, so swift that Josh raises a hand to stroke his cheek, but finds that he is too scared to make his fingers do their work. Josh doesn't want him to go.

Toby's next, and Josh knows him from the rich smell of cigar smoke and from the creak of the hotel's ancient floorboards beneath Toby's fidget. Toby runs two fingers through Josh's hair before he starts, and rubs his thumb over Josh's earlobe. Josh shivers, is still shivering as he feels the warmth of Toby's breath come to his face. His beard is rough and Josh turns his mouth away quickly but he finds that Toby won't give in just yet, that he bends his head down to Josh's neck and kisses him there, in the smooth, white skin beneath his jaw. Josh shivers again at that and brings his arms up to hold Toby, who is already pulling away. Josh finds Toby's hand before he goes and presses it in his own.

He knows CJ before she comes anywhere near him, anticipates her. Like Toby, she comes to him as a scent first: he can smell her hair and the dabs of perfume he knows she likes to hide in the hollow of her neck. She sits beside him and holds his hand again and Josh knows then that CJ realises this is no contest for him, that she wants him to know it's her. She's still holding his hand when she kisses him. Like Sam she is swift and light; no lipstick, no tongue, but Josh realises that he is short of breath even as she pulls away from him, even as she places another quick kiss on his cheek.

Josh strokes his cheek with one finger, barely touching the skin, before he opens his eyes and smiles at them.


End file.
